Can a Pharmacy Be Anti-Choice?

The DMC pharmacy, opening this summer in Chantilly, VA, will not sell condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive.  You would think that, at a time when women are being empowered by the “almost” of Hillary Clinton, now, in the 21st Century, we’d be beyond health care that discriminates against women.  And this bias is showing up elsewhere as well.

The pharmacies are emerging at a time when a variety of health-care workers are refusing to perform medical procedures they find objectionable. Fertility doctors have refused to inseminate gay women. Ambulance drivers have refused to transport patients for abortions. Anesthesiologists have refused to assist in sterilizations.

So, here is the ethical dilemma: Should a business have the right to do what it feels is proper based in the business owner’s values? A pharmacy may decide, for example, that it won’t sell tobacco products.  On the other hand:

“I’m very, very troubled by this,” said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women’s Law Center, a Washington advocacy group. “Contraception is essential for women’s health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women’s health.”

Who’s right and who’s wrong?

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.